1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to an IC (Integrated Circuit) card connector assembly, and particularly to a stacked IC card connector assembly having an improved lower header and an improved rear socket for facilitating arrangement of contact tails of contacts of the connectors in a rear socket.
2. Description of the Prior Art
An IC card connector is commonly adopted within a notebook computer for providing electrical connection between an IC card and the notebook computer whereby the IC card can be read or written on. IC card connectors are often stacked and mounted on a printed circuit board (PCB) by a rear socket, such as the disclosures of Taiwan Patent Application Nos. 83218076 and 84112508, and U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,636,999 and 5,688,130. The assembly of the connectors with the rear socket faces some problems, as explained below.
Referring to FIG. 1, a conventional IC card connector assembly 100 comprises a header 102, two rows of top contacts 104 received in a top portion of the header 102, two rows of bottom contacts 106 received in a bottom portion of the header 102. A rear socket 108 is mounted on a printed circuit board to electrically connect with the connector assembly 100, thereby achieving an electrical connection between the assembly 100 and the printed circuit board. Each top contact 104 comprises a top contact tail 112 and each bottom contact 106 comprises a bottom contact tail 114. Before the contact tails 114, 116 are inserted into the rear socket 108, if the top and bottom contact tails 114, 116 are deflected from a vertical position, they will be very difficult to be inserted into the rear socket 108 to achieve a proper electrical connection therewith, because the tails 114, 116 can only be assembled with the rear socket 108 in a vertical direction. Hence, an improved mechanism is required.